


Equinox

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Cultural Differences, F/M, Gen, Honor, Loss, Love, Mourning, References to Suicide, Spring Equinox, Yamani Culture, honoring the dead, interracial couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 16:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14981189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Roald and Shinko celebrate the spring equinox in Yamani fashion.





	Equinox

Equinox

“May I ask what time it is, Shinko?” Roald’s question was muffled into the silk pillow he had pressed against his face to block the golden ribbons of dawn light streaming through the curtains of their shared bedchamber at the Royal Palace. 

“It’s daybreak.” Shinko tapped his foot with the tip of the broomstick she was using to sweep the mats and carpets of their quarters. Such a task would usually have been left for their maidservants, but today was the spring equinox, and, according to Yamani custom, cleaning on the spring equinox was supposed to bring good luck. For her first spring equinox as Roald’s wife, Shinko intended to work hard to ensure that she and her husband earned fair fortune. “The sun is rising and the morning is wasting, my dear.” 

“Are you sweeping?” Roald lifted his head from the pillow to gape at her as if her body had been replaced by a Stormwing’s while curling his feet away from any further assaults from her broom. “The maidservants will be upset if they see you sweeping. They’ll believe that you’re implying that they aren’t cleaning our rooms properly or that their jobs are under threat.” 

“The maidservants are delighted I gave them a holiday to celebrate the spring equinox.” Shinko smiled serenely at her husband as she continued her sweeping. “While they enjoy the holiday, we can follow the tradition of cleaning to earn good luck.” 

When Roald remained in bed and persisted in staring at her as if she had taken leave of her senses, she tossed a cloth soaked in polish at his face, which he ducked and caught as she urged, “Arise and get to work, cockroach-husband.” 

“Cockroach-husband?” Roald arched an eyebrow at her even as he started polishing their nightstand. 

“That’s the Yamani term for a husband who lounges around while his wife does all the work about the house,” explained Shinko, brisk as the strokes of her broomstick. 

“Always so poetic with the Yamani.” Roald chuckled as he moved onto polishing their wardrobe. “In Tortall, we just call such husbands layabouts.” 

“Did my layabout husband forget it was the spring equinox?” Shinko’s sweeping took her behind her husband, where she paused to rest her chin on his shoulder, which shook with each swipe of the cloth as he polished their furniture. 

“I must have forgotten to mark my calendar.” Roald titled his head so that it folded over hers. “Fortunately, I have the impression that you’ve compensated for my oversight by drawing up an itinerary for us, darling.” 

“Yes, I have.” Shinko relished the warm sensation of being tucked between Roald’s strong shoulder and tender cheek. The perfect balance of tenderness and strength, for Shinko, that defined her husband. “First we clean. Then I honor my ancestors with incense and rice dumplings in my shrine. After that, we honor your ancestors in the crypts with flowers and candles. It is bad luck to fail to do our duty of honoring our ancestors at spring equinox.” 

“I should warn you”—As Roald spoke, Shinko could feel the gentle vibrations in his cheek—“the crypts are filled with my ancestors. We’ll be there until we die if we honor them all.” 

“Then you’ll be relieved to learn that I only plan for us to honor the graves of your grandparents.” Shinko turned her face so that her lips slid across Roald’s in the whisper of a kiss. 

“You’ve never felt the need to honor the graves of my grandparents on the spring equinox before.” Roald’s forehead knotted. 

“We weren’t married before.” Shinko’s fingers teased his forehead until the wrinkles relaxed. “Now that we are, your ancestors become mine to honor along with my own on the spring equinox.” 

“I hope you don’t feel obligated to honor my grandparents, Shinko.” Roald fixed earnest sky blue eyes upon her. “The Black God knows I never visit them since the crypts remind me that all too soon I’ll be sleeping with them permanently.” 

“You’re too somber, my love, and I want to honor your grandparents because they helped create you.” Shinko’s murmur as she kissed Roald’s temple made his face flame to the roots of his black hair, and the sight of his blush fanned fires in Shinko’s heart. 

After that, Roald, apparently too embarrassed to protest, subsided into silence as they finished cleaning their quarters. Once they were done sweeping and polishing, he knelt beside her at her shrine, watching with wide eyes as she burned incense to the clay statues of her ancestors. Then they shared before the altar of her ancestors a meal of the ritual rice dumplings dipped in a red bean sauce Shinko had prepared with Yuki and Haname the previous day. Since Roald was still so clumsy wielding chopsticks that he often ended up with more food on the napkin in his lap than he did in his mouth, Shinko fed him from her own chopsticks. 

When they finished making offering to Shinko’s ancestors, they walked, the hands that weren’t bearing candles and flowers entwined like vines wrapped around a trellis, to the crypts. Their footsteps echoed in the cold air of the crypts, and their breath misted before them as they made their way through generations of dead Contes to the tombs of Roald’s grandparents. Even her breath seemed too loud to Shinko among the lifelessness enveloping her, and when they reached the burial monuments for Roald’s grandparents, it was a relief for Shinko to behold proof that she and Roald weren’t the only living beings to have intruded upon this realm of the dead. 

Orbs of the cerulean Shinko associated with the hottest parts of a flame glowed over the marble likenesses of Roald’s grandparents, casting a flickering light that was at once lovely and mournful enough to slice Shinko’s soul. 

“My father was here.” Roald inclined his chin at the effervescent blue globes hovering over the final resting places of his grandparents. Settling a candle on each grave, he added as he lit the candles and flooded Shinko’s nostrils with the scent of myrrh from Carthak, “He comes down here often in the spring. He lost both his parents the spring before I was born.” 

“He uses his Gift to make a tribute to them.” Shinko’s voice was so hushed she wondered if Roald could hear her over the rustling of the white lilies—the first of the season from the palace greenhouses—as she arranged them in wreaths over the tombs of his grandparents. 

“My grandmother died first.” Roald’s fingers traced the carvings on the monument to his grandmother. “I never met her, of course, but Papa says she was gentle, kind, and beautiful but frail.” 

His gaze drifted to his grandfather’s grave where he seemed to shudder from a name too similar to his own. There were, Shinko thought, too many Roalds in the Conte crypts. 

As if inside Shinko’s head, Roald went on quietly, “My grandfather joined her in death not long after. He’s my namesake. Papa must have loved him to name me after him but sometimes I wish he had loved him less.” 

Shinko could see the burden of being named after a suicide sinking like stones around her husband’s shoulders. Squeezing his tautening shoulders, she curved her words into the shell of his ear as she remembered how it had felt to kneel before her uncle’s chrysanthemum throne, awaiting the first insult thrown at her disgraced family, after her parents had performed the elaborate suicide rite the emperor had ordered when he suspected them of plotting against him. “In the Yamani Islands, it is no shame to kill yourself. It is a way of preserving honor or protesting injustice.” 

Shinko had never revealed that aspect of Yamani culture to her husband, but he didn’t react with the criticism or judgement for which she had been half bracing herself. Instead his tone was almost musing when he answered, “Mama describes a similar philosophy among the K’miri, but my grandfather didn’t kill himself for honor’s or justice’s sake. He killed himself because he was too weak to do his duty to his country. I must atone for that by never failing in my duty to the kingdom. That will restore honor to his name and mine.”


End file.
